{"title":"Robert W Gehl","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"social-engineering-book-robert-w-gehl-9780262543453","title":"Social Engineering","description":"\u003cb\u003eManipulative communication--from early twentieth-century propaganda to today's online con artistry--examined through the lens of social engineering.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe United States is awash in manipulated information about everything from election results to the effectiveness of medical treatments. Corporate social media is an especially good channel for manipulative communication, with Facebook a particularly willing vehicle for it. In \u003ci\u003eSocial Engineering\u003c\/i\u003e, Robert Gehl and Sean Lawson show that online misinformation has its roots in earlier techniques: mass social engineering of the early twentieth century and interpersonal hacker social engineering of the 1970s, converging today into what they call masspersonal social engineering. As Gehl and Lawson trace contemporary manipulative communication back to earlier forms of social engineering, possibilities for amelioration become clearer. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe authors show how specific manipulative communication practices are a mixture of information gathering, deception, and truth-indifferent statements, all with the instrumental goal of getting people to take actions the social engineer wants them to. Yet the term fake news, they claim, reduces everything to a true\/false binary that fails to encompass the complexity of manipulative communication or to map onto many of its practices. They pay special attention to concepts and terms used by hacker social engineers, including the hacker concept of bullshitting, which the authors describe as a truth-indifferent mix of deception, accuracy, and sociability. They conclude with recommendations for how society can undermine masspersonal social engineering and move toward healthier democratic deliberation.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49687806148881,"sku":"CIN0262543451G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49741227393297,"sku":"NGR9780262543453","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262543451.jpg?v=1751227620"},{"product_id":"socialbots-and-their-friends-book-robert-w-gehl-9781138639409","title":"Socialbots and Their Friends","description":"Many users of the Internet are aware of bots: automated programs that work behind the scenes to come up with search suggestions, check the weather, filter emails, or clean up Wikipedia entries. More recently, a new software robot has been making its presence felt in social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter – the socialbot. However, unlike other bots, socialbots are built to appear human. While a weatherbot will tell you if it's sunny and a spambot will incessantly peddle Viagra, socialbots will ask you questions, have conversations, like your posts, retweet you, and become your friend. All the while, if they're well-programmed, you won't know that you're tweeting and friending with a robot.   Who benefits from the use of software robots? Who loses? Does a bot deserve rights? Who pulls the strings of these bots? Who has the right to know what about them? What does it mean to be intelligent? What does it mean to be a friend? Socialbots and Their Friends: Digital Media and the Automation of Sociality is one of the first academic collections to critically consider the socialbot and tackle these pressing questions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50379233984785,"sku":"CIN1138639400VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52478540611857,"sku":"NLS9781138639409","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1138639400.jpg?v=1751367489"},{"product_id":"reverse-engineering-social-media-book-robert-w-gehl-9781439910351","title":"Reverse Engineering Social Media","description":"Robert Gehl's timely critique, Reverse Engineering Social Media, rigorously analyzes the ideas of social media and software engineers, using these ideas to find contradictions and fissures beneath the surfaces of glossy sites such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.        Gehl adeptly uses a mix of software studies, science and technology studies, and political economy to reveal the histories and contexts of these social media sites. Looking backward at divisions of labor and the process of user labor, he provides case studies that illustrate how binary \"Like\" consumer choices hide surveillance systems that rely on users to build content for site owners who make money selling user data, and that promote a culture of anxiety and immediacy over depth.      Reverse Engineering Social Media also presents ways out of this paradox, illustrating how activists, academics, and users change social media for the better by building alternatives to the dominant social media sites.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50382513701137,"sku":"CIN1439910359G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1439910359.jpg?v=1761391600"},{"product_id":"move-slowly-and-build-bridges-book-robert-w-gehl-9780197776674","title":"Move Slowly and Build Bridges","description":"Move Slowly and Build Bridges tells the story of activists, software developers, artists, and everyday people who have built the fediverse -- a large, noncentralized, alternative social media system. In contrast to big tech corporations like Meta, TikTok, or X, the fediverse is comprised of thousands of small, independent communities who use a powerful internet protocol to communicate with one another. These small communities can govern themselves and moderate content at the human scale -- in stark contrast to the global and advertiser-friendly interests of Meta or X.   The Mastodon network is perhaps the most notable and successful platform in the fediverse. Founded in 2016, Mastodon has positioned itself as an alternative to Twitter -- one that can be completely under the control of its members, from it to its daily operations to it underlying software.  Making a noncentralized, ethically-run social media system is no easy task. The people building the fediverse have faced burnout, bigotry, angry debates, and death threats. And they face constant, nagging doubts: can we really do this? Can noncentralized social media survive? Can we -- all of us -- have our own social media? In this thoroughly researched book, Robert W. Gehl argues that the answer is yes -- but it won't be easy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51629569736977,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51629570425105,"sku":"NGR9780197776674","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0197776671.jpg?v=1751289996"},{"product_id":"move-slowly-and-build-bridges-book-robert-w-gehl-9780197776681","title":"Move Slowly and Build Bridges","description":"Move Slowly and Build Bridges tells the story of activists, software developers, artists, and everyday people who have built the fediverse -- a large, noncentralized, alternative social media system. 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In this thoroughly researched book, Robert W. Gehl argues that the answer is yes -- but it won't be easy.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51631502557457,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51631502786833,"sku":"NGR9780197776681","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52510380228881,"sku":"NIN9780197776681","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/019777668X.jpg?v=1772036643"},{"product_id":"socialbots-and-their-friends-book-robert-w-gehl-9781138639393","title":"Socialbots and Their Friends","description":"Many users of the Internet are aware of bots: automated programs that work behind the scenes to come up with search suggestions, check the weather, filter emails, or clean up Wikipedia entries. 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Socialbots and Their Friends: Digital Media and the Automation of Sociality is one of the first academic collections to critically consider the socialbot and tackle these pressing questions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52478591566097,"sku":"NLS9781138639393","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53014333292817,"sku":"NIN9781138639393","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781138639393.jpg?v=1759847410"},{"product_id":"weaving-the-dark-web-book-robert-w-gehl-9780262038263","title":"Weaving the Dark Web","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn exploration of the Dark Web--websites accessible only with special routing software--that examines the history of three anonymizing networks, Freenet, Tor, and I2P.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe term Dark Web conjures up drug markets, unregulated gun sales, stolen credit cards. But, as Robert Gehl points out in \u003ci\u003eWeaving the Dark Web\u003c\/i\u003e, for each of these illegitimate uses, there are other, legitimate ones: the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e's anonymous whistleblowing system, for example, and the use of encryption by political dissidents. Defining the Dark Web straightforwardly as websites that can be accessed only with special routing software, and noting the frequent use of legitimate and its variations by users, journalists, and law enforcement to describe Dark Web practices (judging them legit or sh t), Gehl uses the concept of legitimacy as a window into the Dark Web. He does so by examining the history of three Dark Web systems: Freenet, Tor, and I2P. \u003cbr\u003e Gehl presents three distinct meanings of legitimate: legitimate force, or the state's claim to a monopoly on violence; organizational propriety; and authenticity. He explores how Freenet, Tor, and I2P grappled with these different meanings, and then discusses each form of legitimacy in detail by examining Dark Web markets, search engines, and social networking sites. Finally, taking a broader view of the Dark Web, Gehl argues for the value of anonymous political speech in a time of ubiquitous surveillance. If we shut down the Dark Web, he argues, we lose a valuable channel for dissent.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52701420159249,"sku":"CIN0262038269G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53157392515345,"sku":"GOR009421073","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780262038263.jpg?v=1762536362"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-robert-w-gehl.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}